Not too many mishaps for our crew this year. One ice chest disappeared, and our cooler got cleaned out during the Egg Bowl. We always looked forward for some unsuspecting soul to round the corner and hit the magical bump in the curve that ends up dumping out the contents of your cooler, exposing the beer that has to be poured out. There were lots of memorable "beer busts", most of which involved a woman! The coeds continue to surprise with the range of outfits that expose more and more skin!
This year we got more of our tailgate team members involved in the setup and take down of tailgate site. The early kickoff time of 11:00 made this a challenge for those driving up the morning of the game, and having traffic through the Grove closed three hours before the game.
With Alabama on campus, led by their throwing Samoan, and TSUN and their Hawaiian QB, the decorating theme for that weekend was easy. Our Chef Kyle and his wife Casie showed up with three tubs of Hawaiian decorations, let the good times begin. Kyle even cooked up skewers of pineapple and Spam, which was actually quite tasty. Pictures from that weekend qualified us for Tailgate of the day a few weekends later. Here's the Jumbotron pic!
The school administration tried to do some "out of the box" thinking. They created a premium tailgate package, 10x20 tent, parking pass, table & chairs, tv, and fully catered for the low price of $17,500! And, they had quite a few takers! They also had $1 hot dogs, while they lasted, at the beginning of the 4th quarter! The new courtesy shuttles were right on for fans without a parking pass.
New items for us this year included a logoed wall panel backdrop placed behind the tables. The bar height table was added late last year, and it added addition table space for displaying table scape.
I found a Stanley 3 quart steel crock that keeps food farm for 12+ hours. They worked great this weekend with the brunswick stew I made. I dropped it off at 9:00 a.m. and the contents were still warm at 10:00 p.m.!
The next nine months will be spent coming up with new food ideas, finding that next neat tailgating item, and I have bragging rights for the next 12 months, #HAILSTATE!
